Michael Horan is a theologian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who can relate Catholic beliefs to Catholic practice, particularly in the political realm. Horan believes hard-line tactics by bishops to deny communion to abortion rights politicians can backfire.

David J. O’Brien is a professor of Catholic studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. He has written and commented widely about Catholics and politics.

Rebecca Kobrin is an assistant professor of history at Columbia University in New York City. She specializes in the history of American Judaism and is at work on a book about Jewish migration to North America.

Read an Aug. 20, 2009, CNN story on where the Rev. Jim Wallis and Tony Perkins agree on abortion.

Gregg Ivers is a professor in the school of public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He is an expert on constitutional law and is the author of To Build a Wall: American Jews and the Separation of Church and State.

Ari Goldman is a journalism professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. He is a former religion reporter for The New York Times and is the author of several books on Jews and Judaism, including Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today and Living a Year of Kaddish. He can discuss major issues […]

WordAlone is a Minnesota-based organization that encourages congregations to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America due to its decisions regarding homosexuality.

William V. D’Antonio is an associate researcher at The Catholic University of America and a fellow of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He is a leading analyst of the changing roles of Catholic laity in society and politics.

Steven M. Cohen is a research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a senior consultant to Synagogue 3000. He is one of the authors of the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study and can discuss its findings on independent minyanim and havurot.